Six Karate Kid films exist. Six. That’s the straightforward response to a question that comes up more frequently than you might think, particularly since Cobra Kai brought a whole new generation into the franchise and encouraged people to rewatch movies they had either forgotten or never seen before. 1984, 1986, 1989, 1994, 2010, and 2025 is the abbreviated version. However, the majority of what makes this franchise worth discussing is missing from the condensed version.
Like most things in this story, it began with Mr. Miyagi and Daniel LaRusso. John G. Avildsen, the director of Rocky, and Robert Mark Kamen wrote the screenplay for the first Karate Kid, which debuted in June 1984. A child from New Jersey relocates to California, where he is tormented by a karate gang known as Cobra Kai, finds an unlikely mentor in the handyman of his apartment, and ultimately triumphs in a tournament that shouldn’t be as emotionally fulfilling as it is. The movie made more than ten times its original budget. There would inevitably be a sequel.
When The Karate Kid Part II came out in 1986, it accomplished something that good-faith sequels seldom try: it moved the emotional burden from Daniel to Miyagi. The two go to Okinawa, where Miyagi has to deal with his past, his dying father, and an unresolved rivalry. James Crabe, the cinematographer who also shot Rocky, filled the movie with pictures of a beauty that seemed almost unsuitable for a summer blockbuster. The more you watch it, the more it seems to be subtly reevaluated as one of the original trilogy’s entries.
The wheels started to wobble in Part III, which was published in 1989. Returning with Terry Silver, a wealthy ally, John Kreese has a plan to destroy Daniel that somehow calls for a villain-for-hire and a complex conspiracy involving a karate tournament.
Although the plot heavily relies on well-known beats and Macchio, who was 28 at the time, was obviously stretching the credibility of playing an 18-year-old for the third consecutive year, Silver is genuinely entertaining—chaotically so. Viewers noticed that the movie felt like a franchise on the verge of collapse.
In 1994, The Next Karate Kid was released. No Daniel, no Cobra Kai, but Miyagi was back, this time coaching Julie Pierce (played by Hilary Swank, who was unknown at the time), years before Monster and Million Dollar Baby made her a household name. This time, the antagonist is a paramilitary school security force, which is just as bizarre as it sounds. Swank gives the part genuine physicality, and the Miyagi-Julie relationship has a warmth that works. However, the movie was not well received and is largely forgotten; it is the only part of the series that Cobra Kai has yet to acknowledge.
It took sixteen years for the franchise to reappear. Technically speaking, the 2010 Karate Kid is a remake (same title, roughly similar structure), but it moved everything to Beijing, replaced karate with kung fu, cast Jackie Chan as the mentor figure Mr. Han and Jaden Smith as the new kid, and created something that feels more like a cousin of the original than a copy.
Globally, it brought in almost $360 million. The numbers are hard to dispute, regardless of your stylistic opinion. Additionally, the 2025 movie Karate Kid: Legends brought the two timelines together by officially placing the 2010 movie in the same universe as the originals, casting both Chan and Ralph Macchio, and introducing a new lead in Li Fong, played by Ben Wang.
Observing this franchise throughout its entire existence seems to reveal something about how pop culture truly evolves over time, not in tidy storylines but rather in cycles of weariness, rebirth, and unanticipated second chances. The Netflix series Cobra Kai, which ran from 2018 to 2025, improved the Karate Kid’s reputation more than any of the subsequent movies. It recast Johnny Lawrence as something more nuanced than a bully, brought back almost all of the major actors from the original trilogy, and garnered critical acclaim that the movies never quite achieved after 1986.
Six films, one animated series, one six-season live-action series, and a franchise that has since outlived the initial run of its own original cast. The performance of Legends over time will likely determine whether the next chapter belongs to Li Fong or someone else. However, it has historically been unprofitable to wager against The Karate Kid.
